Habituation and Novelty

Beginning in infancy and throughout the life span, humans are motivated by newness, change, and excitement. Habituation, the tendency to lose interest in a repeated event and gain interest in a new one, is one of the most fundamental human reflexes. If the thermostat were to suddenly turn the air conditioning on, you would hear the loud humming sound begin, but within minutes you couldn’t even hear it if you tried. Habituation, a fundamental property of the nervous system, provides mechanisms to ignore the environment when it presents no immediate threat or reward, and to focus attention on potentially important new input. Habituation is also an elementary form of inhibition, the complex cognitive maneuver that allows us to override urges. This reflects the function of the frontal lobes of the brain. Finally, habituation is considered to be the simplest form of learning. Habituation is important to understand in relation to children’s motivation, because if children are habituating to the learning situation of the classroom, their attention and interest will decline.

Notes:

Folksonomies: education learning novelty

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Understanding How Young Children Learn

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Ostroff, Wendy L. (August 2012), Understanding How Young Children Learn, ASCD, Retrieved on 2016-05-30

Folksonomies: education learning